Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown opened with the spiritual, “I Know I Have Been Changed.” What an inspiring way to begin PEAK2021! LaTosha shared her four-V strategy—vision, voice, values, and victory—to frame how we can engage with and invest in our communities. She challenged us to radically reimagine our nation without racism, and lean into discomfort as we push for the changes we know are needed.

Justice Funders brought together a five-star panel with Kimi Mojica, Maria Nakae, Cristina Yoon, Elaine Mui, Rebecca Van Sickle, and Curtis Yancy to help us think about all the ways that we can move from extractive to regenerative practices in philanthropy. They stressed that the scale of the solution must reflect the scale of the problem. In addition, we must work to shift power inside of our institutions, and although it is difficult to change the status quo, use the rejections we get as key information that can be used to better organize change-making efforts rather than wholesale rejection.

PolicyLink’s Michael McAfee and Amanda Navarro highlighted that in order to build trust with communities, our actions need to back up what we say. Our communities see when words and deeds don’t align, so if we are not simultaneously pushing for systems change while supporting immediate needs, then we are not being trustworthy partners.

Read the full article about equity in grantmaking by Melissa Sines at PEAK Grantmaking.